Post by on Jun 4, 2010 12:41:50 GMT -5

yeah undergrad is just a lot of calculus and fluid dynamics with some chemistry and statistics depending on your focus. a lot of forecasters :cough: accuweather :cough cough: do just what you said about looking at models and forecasting off that. the problem is that a monkey can do that, as i do every year before roo, and there are way more people wanting to do it than there are jobs available. so basically now you have to specialize in air quality or computer modeling or instrumentation to be worth anything. as it turns out, a lot of these things are boring to most people who want to do operational forecasting. and just so as not to offend any forecasters that might be reading this: i am aware that humans can and do contribute additional value to model forecasts and MOS. whoo, i just hijacked the roo weather thread!!!!!

Post by LD on Jun 4, 2010 13:03:31 GMT -5

Perhaps I was better off not sticking around in the program, considering it is quite difficult for anyone I know that stuck with MTR to get jobs. One old friend of mine, finally got accepted at NWS San Diego. One woman got a weekend forecasting job for a regional cable news channel. I can't think of too many others that actually got into the field.

I was doing some undergrad intern work doing "monkey stuff", taking a template and updating current weather information for newspapers in CT and NY. Was nice to see my work get published, but it was remarkably easy in - just looking at whatever NWS posted somewhere and transposing that on the template. (One of our major competitors was Accuweather.)

Getting back on topic: my ideal Roo weather = Friday through Sunday be nice, sunny and 80s. Then just to get in and out between Providence RI and Nashville Thursday and Tuesday afternoons.

Post by Ally on Jun 4, 2010 13:38:56 GMT -5

My major in college was Meteorology. One of my professors used to be the meteorologist for the Today Show back in the day. I took his Advanced Meteorology class. He was a hardass and gave us a ton of work. There were 20 people in the class at the beginning of the semester and by the end there were only 5 of us left (3 were grad students). Everyone else dropped out. I learned more from that one class than from any other class. Anyways, one of our guest speakers works for the Weather Channel. The first thing he asked me was what my specialty was. He said that you can't be successful in meteorology unless you have a specialty. I never choose a specialty and ended up graduating with a degree in geography because I didn't feel like taking all the math classes required for the meteorology degree. The math classes would have added another year or two. The geography degree was useless as I don't have experience with GIS. I'm now a writer and love it. Someday I might go back to college to finish the meteorology degree. I really loved the classes I took.

Speaking of monkeys predicting the weather, my professor told us a story of how a cow predicted the weather better than he did. He told us that when he was working at the Today Show, a local farmer claimed that his cow could predict the weather. The show decided to put on a month long contest to see who was better at predicting the weather. Every time the cow swished it's tail to the right, it would rain. When it's tail swished to the left, it would be sunny. The cow predicted the weather better than my professor for fifteen days. Then it got pregnant and couldn't predict the weather anymore. My professor ended up winning the contest but he was so embarrassed that a cow almost beat him in predicting the weather.

if you're wondering what i'm talking about, read the end of page 7. I'm going to go ahead and make my forecast for no rain and a lot of sun, save for the afternoon pop up shower or two. see last year's thread for my forecast record (I pretty much nailed it :-p).

in a matter of hours i bet all the private sector sites like weather.com and accuweather will be saying clear skies as well.

Post by bennyc on Jun 5, 2010 3:52:39 GMT -5

yeah undergrad is just a lot of calculus and fluid dynamics with some chemistry and statistics depending on your focus. a lot of forecasters :cough: accuweather :cough cough: do just what you said about looking at models and forecasting off that. the problem is that a monkey can do that, as i do every year before roo, and there are way more people wanting to do it than there are jobs available. so basically now you have to specialize in air quality or computer modeling or instrumentation to be worth anything. as it turns out, a lot of these things are boring to most people who want to do operational forecasting. and just so as not to offend any forecasters that might be reading this: i am aware that humans can and do contribute additional value to model forecasts and MOS. whoo, i just hijacked the roo weather thread!!!!!

Perhaps I was better off not sticking around in the program, considering it is quite difficult for anyone I know that stuck with MTR to get jobs. One old friend of mine, finally got accepted at NWS San Diego. One woman got a weekend forecasting job for a regional cable news channel. I can't think of too many others that actually got into the field.

I was doing some undergrad intern work doing "monkey stuff", taking a template and updating current weather information for newspapers in CT and NY. Was nice to see my work get published, but it was remarkably easy in - just looking at whatever NWS posted somewhere and transposing that on the template. (One of our major competitors was Accuweather.)

Getting back on topic: my ideal Roo weather = Friday through Sunday be nice, sunny and 80s. Then just to get in and out between Providence RI and Nashville Thursday and Tuesday afternoons.

Post by on Jun 5, 2010 6:21:01 GMT -5

Here is a model solution for sunday. The green arrow is pointing to a low pressure center/trough (opposite of a ridge/high) and the green blotch represents the rain from the system that would probably impact roo. This far out the location and speed of the low are iffy, so we may be looking at rain either sunday, sunday night, or monday morning.

Post by on Jun 5, 2010 6:34:48 GMT -5

Lastly, these are the spaghetti charts i was talking about that can be used (to a limited degree) as a measure of model confidence. The closer the lines are, the more confidence. In other words, top one (this monday) good, bottom one (next sunday) bad. Even with all the uncertainty in the bottom one you can still make out the trough in the west; ridge in the east. Depending on how fast the trough in the west progresses eastward, you might be packing up a wet tent. Sort of the reverse of last year, when we had rain early then clearing.

if you're wondering what i'm talking about, read the end of page 7. I'm going to go ahead and make my forecast for no rain and a lot of sun, save for the afternoon pop up shower or two. see last year's thread for my forecast record (I pretty much nailed it :-p).

in a matter of hours i bet all the private sector sites like weather.com and accuweather will be saying clear skies as well.

Are you still standing by this forecast? What do the latest GFS models suggest?

Post by on Jun 6, 2010 8:45:07 GMT -5

yeah pretty much. that ridge is a pretty sure thing, which will stave off any long periods of rain. it should persist all weekend. however, the past few model runs have shown a weak shortwave trof (see below, i put a green arrow pointing to it) developing on friday which would help the chances of afternoon showers. it's going to be pretty hot and humid, so there may be some spotty short lived showers popping up, but that's impossible to forecast with pinpoint accuracy. in other words, it very well may rain 2 miles away thursday and friday. what i'm more certain of is the absence of any widespread/organized systems moving through, thanks to the high pressure/ridge over the southeast (see second picture). Also, this is from an NWS office in KY, with a pretty funny line at the end; basically "we'll let day shift figure it out." They too are saying that the ridge is going to prevent anything but diurnal (afternoon) storms, but again, you can't really look at models to figure out afternoon convection.

"THURSDAY MAY BE DRY...AS WEAK SURFACE HIGH PRESSURE BUILDS ACROSSTHE AREA...AND RIDGING ALSO DEVELOPS ALOFT. THE ECMWF AND GFS EACHARE GENERATINGDIURNAL CONVECTION OVER MUCH OF THE AREA FRIDAY ANDSATURDAY DESPITE SIGNIFICANT UPPER RIDGING.THIS SCENARIO IS NOTREPRESENTED TERRIBLY WELL IN THE CURRENT GRIDS...BUT WILL LET THEDAY SHIFT ADDRESS IT."

Post by on Jun 6, 2010 8:49:49 GMT -5

and just in case you were wondering. there are no 'accuweather' models or 'weather channel' models. the government handles all the modeling, (the navy does some too and we also use the european one). so basically any other sites you're looking at are using the same model output from NWS/NOAA that i've been posting. the difference is that the private sector makes money off of crap 10 day forecasts, and the government has skill requirements so they don't really even bother. it's almost like the government is growing corn, and a bunch of private companies are trying to think of ways of processing and packaging it (corn syrup) so you'll buy it. :-p

Post by zenfnp on Jun 6, 2010 8:49:52 GMT -5

^^^ I just love it that we have our own personal Inforoo meteorologist! I am really enjoying reading your analyses. I've always been a weather buff myself. Before the Weather Channel got acquired by NBC and consequently has become progressively more cheesy, I could watch it for hours to the amusement of some of my friends.

Post by on Jun 6, 2010 9:03:22 GMT -5

thanks. sorry for jacking the thread. please feel free to keep posting and discussing crapuweather and other ridiculous private sector leno. to me those sites seem more interested in selling me paint from home depot than predicting the weather

I'm just really happy that we don't have to worry about any fronts moving through or anything giving us a day and a half of rain. Don't mistake me for a professional forecaster though . . . because I'm not.

Post by wolfmanjess on Jun 6, 2010 9:06:17 GMT -5

thanks. sorry for jacking the thread. please feel free to keep posting and discussing crapuweather and other ridiculous private sector leno. to me those sites seem more interested in selling me paint from home depot than predicting the weather

I'm just really happy that we don't have to worry about any fronts moving through or anything giving us a day and a half of rain.

Hey man I appreciate what you are doing and you are obviously good at it. By all means keep it up..